NOTES for Gal 5:2
In his letter to the church of Galatia, Paul speaks quite decisively about circumcision: whoever is circumcised gains no benefit from Christ. At first glance such a statement can seem plainly incongruous: among Christians in those days the circumcised were almost the majority, and Paul himself was among them. The matter is clearly not about the fact of circumcision itself. Incidentally, judging by the context of the letter, it is not hard to be convinced that here the matter concerns recent pagans who were circumcised after already becoming Christians. And this was already an entirely different matter: for them circumcision became a kind of obligatory religious rite without which one could not enter the Church or become a Christian.
At least this is what those who called newly converted Christians to be circumcised asserted. And Paul could no longer accept this at all. The issue here is not a position or theological opinions, but the apostle's experience. He knew too well that no religion and no efforts undertaken within religious frameworks, broadly speaking, lead to anything. Paul, while still Saul, did everything he could to attain the ideal and become what was then called the living Torah. He strove to follow the Torah quite sincerely and in all fullness, and suffered complete defeat.
Only the meeting with the Risen One on the Damascus road saved him from spiritual collapse. And now he hears the assertions of people who are convinced that relations with Christ are not enough for salvation, that they must necessarily be supplemented by circumcision, otherwise nothing will work. And this despite the fact that even in the Torah circumcision is called only the "sign of the union," the "sign of the covenant." Not the meaning of this union-covenant, and not even some foundational condition, but only a sign.
Of course, refusing the sign of the union concluded with God is by no means a virtue. But to place salvation in the sign? For Paul this was simply absurd. Yet he understood that for someone it really was so. And such a state of affairs means only one thing: people hope in their religiosity more than in Christ. And here one really cannot count on Christ's help and intervention. One can, while being a religious person, seek and find Christ.
One can even build relations with Him while remaining, though not too much, a religious person. But to find Christ and then set out in search of some other religion, without which one supposedly cannot get by, means simply not understanding whom one has met. For a Christian, relations with Christ are by definition valuable in themselves, necessary, and sufficient; they require no additions or "supplements." And if a person does not understand this, then he is not yet entirely a Christian. Or not a Christian at all.